FINAL AGREEMENT IS A TOTAL SURRENDER OF BRITAIN’S FISHING

FINAL AGREEMENT IS A TOTAL SURRENDER OF BRITAIN’S FISHING

The Final Withdrawal Agreement is a second surrender of Britain’s fishing.

It runs coach & horses across Ministerial and Scottish Conservatives red line promises.

Ahead of the Sunday summit a leak of the final text shows the EU demands that the Future Relationship should “build on, inter alia, existing reciprocal access and quota shares”

We condemn the Withdrawal agreement for both the Transition – which means re-obeying detrimental CFP rules post-Brexit – and because it also gifts the EU a weapon to lever Britain into the EUs Future Relationship demands.

The Transition will be fatal to so many – but to compound the danger Markets and Access ARE linked in the Agreement.

This despite Ministerial and White paper commitments that it would not be and with the PM lying in the commons saying they are not.

Article 6 on page 311 states otherwise. That there will be no market access for fisheries and aquaculture products “unless an agreement on access to waters and fishing opportunities is applicable”.

The Future Relationship demands that for market access the applicable agreement on fisheries that must be reached (less markets be closed) is under ‘non-discrimination’ and on a ‘level playing field’ which means alignment with EU rules.

“’non-discrimination’ has always been the basis of equal access to a common resource – the CFPs founding tenant. Article 18 of TFEU defines non-discrimination as ensuring there is never ‘any discrimination on grounds of nationality’.”

This terminology, and the EU demand that the future applicable agreement Britain must agree to in order to access markets “should build on, inter alia, existing reciprocal access and quota shares”, means Britain is being set up to be enveloped in CFP associated membership using markets to lever access.

It is clear to us that we are being manipulated towards a course that leads in one direction towards membership of ‘a’ CFP rather than ‘the’ CFP.

Given that a fisheries agreement would be subject “Within the context of the overall economic partnership” it leaves fisheries wide open to being sacrificed yet again as negotiating capital using the agreement that markets and access are linked as the lever.”

The Future Agreement that’s to be levered out the UK under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, combined with a Transition that can be extended past 2020, clearly blows Ministerial and Scots Tories red line out the water.

If extended, the Transition includes ALL EU law – including the CFP. The EU won’t make retrospective exemptions of areas like the CFP to save MPs face..

The governments statement that “the UK will be an independent coastal state” as some sort of shield is a nonsense as it is no defense against the agreement.

The UK may officially, legally, be an independent non-EU member, enforcing her laws under her own steam.

However, these laws will be set subject to the wider fisheries agreement with the EU under the EUs stipulations above. This is the vassal state and no mater how much lipstick is applied its a surrender.

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We also issue a stark warning to Scottish Tories – Signing up to such a deal will see CFP associate membership and the further culling of whats left of our industry after a protracted transition period at the mercy of EU diktat..

Voting for this deal will cost Scots Tory’s their seats and with that the Union they say they desire above all other things to protect.

Self-interest, party and country are now all interlinked and all best served by voting against the PMs worst deal in history.

We therefore call on Scots and all other Tory MPs to honour their pledge and vote this dreadful ‘vassal state’ deal down. Not just for fishing but for the nation as a whole.

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Fishing for Leave also question what price for the big interests in the Scottish Fishermens Federation (SFF) who unbelievably quickly backed this aberration of a deal on Thursday just after it was officially announced… with their statement cited by the PM only a few hours after issue..?

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About FFL

Fishing for Leave is an independent campaign set up by people in the fishing industry for the fishing industry.